Are You Running From Love? - Part 2

The Common Distancing Patterns
As i have described in the post earlier, people tend to get close to their partner but that is only up to a point, where they will start to distance themselves. We call this "A Distancer". But before we learn how to spot or recognize distancing behaviors, we definitely need to know the common behavior patterns.

Sometimes it is very obvious, someone who won't talk about the way he or she feels or won't open up sexually (NOT MEANING OPEN IN HAVING SEX), but then, there are a lot of other ways to do it.

The busy and distracted lifestyle - Classical one where the man (now, sometimes the woman) is always at work, or the mother who devotes all her time and energy to the children and is always putting the relationship with her husband on hold because they are afraid of being really open and vulnerable and intimate with their partner.

One person may even seem like the "super partner" where he or she takes care of so much that he/she doesn't actually take the time to connect with their partner. When this happens, we'll have a couple that looks really good on the surface but actually something is missing.

Then, there's the extreme situation where the man or woman who wants to have a relationshop but they can't let themselves get near to having one. Normally for this extreme situation, the guy or gal would actually find something wrong with everybody they date or even find ways to avoid meeting people or avoid dating or exploring relationships.

Next is the middle category. These are the people who actually get into relationships and do great in courtship stage. They're into it, they're very excited and may even be very apparently open sexually and emotionally but when it starts to move into a more committed and vulnerable stage, they start to distance themselves. It looks like a simple fear of commitment but if you look closely under the covers, it comes back to ways people learn to distrust closeness and vulnerability in an intimate relationship.

Well, there you have it, the patterns that you should be looking out for. The next post tomorrow will be finally about how to recognize the distancing behaviors. Enjoy.